


Je t'embrasserais

by Michelle Christian (movies_michelle)



Category: Chevalier: Le Chevalier D'Eon
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-06
Updated: 2011-12-06
Packaged: 2017-10-27 00:40:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/289664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/movies_michelle/pseuds/Michelle%20Christian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where nightmares are possible, so are dreams. AU set after the end of the series. Written for taihaku for Yuletide 2007.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Je t'embrasserais

_Oh! Que n'es-tu mon frere, Allaite des mamelles de ma mere! Je te rencontrerais dehors, je t'embrasserais, Et l'on ne me mepriserait pas._ *

I am Charles-Genevieve-Louis-Auguste-Andre-Thimothee D'Eon de Beaumont. I have been a spy, a patriot, a lover, a knight, and almost, once, a traitor. The France I knew--the France I believed in as a child--is changing. Perhaps it will ultimately be for the better; but now there is anger in the land, and while I still love her, and hold my oaths to her dear, I fear what is to come.

I am also Lia de Beaumont, sister of D'Eon. Spy, swordswoman, lover, vengeful spirit. Cursed by anger and love to wander the earth past the point of my own death, I came back and used my brother's body to exact retribution on those who had murdered me. There are none left, now, but still I cannot go to my heavenly Father, nor do I believe I would wish to. My brother has lost everything, everyone he cared for in pursuit of my retribution. I could not leave him alone.

We are de Beaumont, man and woman, though I live as a woman almost entirely now. It was easier to hide as a woman, after that night in the King's bedchamber, surrounded by blood and ghosts.

I do not always know where my sister ends and I begin. I am not sure it matters any longer. When I was a child, my nanny told me there were simple truths in this life of good and evil. I know now how very wrong she was.

There is nothing simple in this life.

After facing Louis XV, King by the Grace of God, I could no longer remain in France. For Louis was not king by God's Grace, but by the all too human machinations of a manservant. Louis died long and horribly, as he deserved, and that is all I will say of him.

So England welcomed me, if not gladly, then with an amused air towards the strange, eccentric Frenchwoman who had once lived as a man. I told people I had always been a woman, though I was raised as a boy by my father. I knew there was much speculation, many hours spent wondering what truly lay beneath my skirts.

People could whisper as they wished. I only desired to be left alone.

I took up residence at the Dolphin Hotel in London. I had never liked the city, but at that moment, thoughts of where to go next, what I wished to do, and what my oaths would allow were all mist beyond my reach, so I stayed there to rest and think.

There was much I did not wish to think about.

For months I walked, trying to clear my head of the ghosts, and sometimes to practice in one of the city's parks. I had thought I could lay the sword down for a while, tired of the blood and death that had accompanied it, but I could not leave it be. The restlessness that settled over me was inescapable, and I found the only time I was truly able to go outside of myself and get away from the memories was when I was in the middle of practice. I could ignore the stares of those onlookers who happened by and stayed to watch the strange woman practicing with a sword.

One day I returned through the hotel lobby, only vaguely noting a man at the front desk, one sleeve of his great coat hanging empty. Not an unusual sight in these times, and I thought nothing of it as I started past.

"Do you have any spare rooms."

I froze.

It could not be.

I turned toward the familiar voice, not sure what I had heard, but knowing I had to look. I must have gasped, for the man looked up.

I have seen the dead walk before, most often as gross caricatures of the men and women they had been in life. I had seen this face, gray in death and lurching towards me, violently intent with the will of another and begging for true death. I had faced them down, if not with the bravery to which I aspired, then without too much shame. But what I saw before me now nearly made me stumble back in horror.

It was Durand, much as I had last seen him when he'd been lying peacefully on a slab of marble. I also had memory of a dream which I had thought real: him walking, naked and whole, into the light of Heaven. At the time, it seemed to support the traitor Teillagory's words, that Durand was finally at peace; it angered me that someone had turned this into yet another lie. It terrified me, as well, for I had thought my own horror to be at an end.

But I am only half a coward, and I stood staring until he faced me.

It was unmistakably Durand:dark complected, long brown hair pulled back from his face, eyes sharp and searching, always searching for hidden danger.

"Lia," it said, and took a step towards me, ignoring the clerk behind the desk. This was no lurching, rotting horror, but seemingly living flesh and blood. Somehow, that made it more terrifying. Maximilien had returned whole and alive for a time, so I knew it was possible. The question was why Durand, and I could not think of what it or anyone else could want from me.

I took a step back and reached for the hilt of my sword on instinct. I could not take it, this thing wearing Durand's body, where there were so many innocent people around who might be hurt if I tried. Anger welled up in me again, against my will, wishing to raze the building to the ground around us.

Calm, sister, I thought to myself, though I did not truly know which of us felt the most anger. Not here. I feared the loss of control as much as the potential loss of life.

The creature was intelligent, whatever it was: it stopped its approach. "D'Eon," it said, and held its single hand out away from its body and its sword. "I have been looking for you."

I felt the urge to go for its throat, to end it once and for all. But the danger to others was still there--increased, since we were already starting to gather a crowd. I stormed out of the lobby instead, assuming it would follow. If it had been looking for me, then it was unlikely to leave before it got what it wanted.

I did not look back at it, and was careful to act as if I did not see it, but I kept it always in my peripheral vision, waiting for it to move in a way more threatening. I did not remove my hand from the hilt of my sword.

I walked to a nearby park, one I did not normally frequent: the trees were too dense for normal practice, but it was private and rarely used by anyone this time of day. And if anyone should happen by, they would not give a second thought to a man and a woman meeting alone here. I set aside my sword against one of the trees--it would be near useless in a fight in such short quarters--and pulled out the dagger-pistol I kept always on my person.

"What do you want?" I asked it flatly, keeping my eyes on it. It returned to that same hand-out pose it had assumed in the hotel lobby.

"To talk. I'd heard..."

I had no patience for games.

"Who sent you? I am no longer in the King's service, no matter which king sits on the throne," I said bitterly, walking around it and keeping the gun aimed straight at the thing's head. I could not see any letters or symbols of its master on it, and shooting it in the head would probably not kill it, but it would slow it down until I could come up with something better. "I know nothing of what is happening in France now."

"I know nothing," it said, and looked...lost. Confused. It looked like Durand, but not as I had ever seen him, alive or dead.

This was not enough to make me lower my weapon, however.

"What do you want from me?" I repeated, trying not to let my desperation show--nor my desire for this to be truly Durand, whole and alive, no matter how impossible that was.

"I want to know what happened!" it shouted in frustration, startling some nearby birds into flight.

I stepped sideways, keeping it in my sights.

It took a deep breath--would it need to breathe if it were not Durand, alive?-- and calmed itself. "The last thing I remember," it said, much more softly, "was being in a clearing. My arm..." it reached, as if instinctively, towards its empty sleeve.

That he didn't remember what came after, the arrest and bargain, and what he had become...did that prove he was Durand or not?

That it did not remember, I corrected myself. It.

"What happened?" it asked, forlornly.

And that's what nearly broke me. So many things had happened, with Robin and Teillagory, Robespierre and the King. And Anna, my sweet, doomed Anna. And Durand, who had died before most of it even occurred.

"You remember nothing else?" I asked, my voice wavering, but my gun steady.

He--it looked confused again. "Just...moments. Faces. Robespierre leaning over me. You with a sword. Pain. And this...light..." He took a step towards me. "Is the King safe?" he asked seriously.

I wanted to laugh. "We protected him," I said flatly. "But he's dead, now."

And I knew that look on his face, one which no re-animated corpse could ever hope to imitate. That mixture of relief and bitter happiness. Honor and duty satisfied, even if it was a hollow victory.

Honor belongs not to the body, but to the soul. No creature without a soul could have or care about it.

I dropped the hand holding my gun to my side. It was heavier than it looked, and I was suddenly very tired.

"How is Robin?" Durand asked. "Teillagory?"

I did laugh at that. No, I could not escape the ghosts. I started with the simplest. "Teillagory is dead." No need to go into how or why now. Robin had never gone into details, anyway, and I had not wanted to ask. "Robin is...alive." And filled with more anger than any boy his age should have.

Durand closed his eyes for a moment and breathed. How could a corpse know relief, either?

"I woke up," he finally said, "in a field near here. I had no clothes and no idea how I got there."

So, Durand had been brought back. How or why seemed far less important than it had shortly before, lost in the rush of relief that he was back at all, and apparently not controlled by other forces.

I took a step towards him, as if unable to fight any more. "Durand," I said, and all the loneliness I had felt since Paris seemed to be in that one name. I had kept to myself since coming to England, not wanting to draw any more attention than I had to, not wanting to deal with questions. But everyone was full of questions and gossip and rumors. Unfortunately, there was no one left who could have understood the answers--until now.

He came towards me and wrapped his arm around my shoulders.

I felt, amidst the confusion and the hope building inside me, another stirring I had never thought to feel again. I had wanted Durand as D'Eon, even when I had not fully understood it, and I had felt the pull even as Lia, though my heart had belonged to another. Durand, who had been the center of the King's Secret, but whose true feelings had always seemed closely guarded.

I had never seen him cry before, not at Lia's grave, not when the pain from his wound had wrecked him. But now I heard his breathing hitch and I knew what was happening. I tightened my arms around him.

"I did not know what had happened," he said, his voice steadier than I expected. I looked up at him, and had a moment before he leaned down to kiss me.

I rarely had such moments anymore where the flood of feelings and emotions from two separate people confused me. I was Lia and D'Eon both, and was only myself, at the same time. The concept of the Trinity had never made more sense to me. But with Durand's kiss, I was nearly undone by the jumble of conflicting feelings and memories. I was certain I had never kissed another man before, but I could remember kissing Maximilien, lying in his embrace, and all of the caresses and sensations that came between. I was suddenly filled with desperation and passion, and seized Durand more firmly and kissed him back.

Durand pulled back, gasping for air. "That was...surprising," he said, a smile on his face, and the first trace of his old sardonic wit back in his voice.

"Yes," I said, and came in for another kiss.

Something moved in the trees near us, and we separated, alert for intruders. I had forgotten our surroundings, that we were still out in public, in the middle of the city. Foolish, a lapse that until recently would have gotten me killed, and still might.

I looked back at Durand, who had his own hand on the pommel of his sword, as he watched the trees. This was the man I had known, no mistake.

"Come back with me," I said, going to retrieve my sword. I turned around to see him smile.

"It would seem I have nowhere else to be," he said.

***

We walked back to the hotel more slowly than we had left it. And Durand talked, each word convincing me more and more it was truly him. He had woken up with no memory at all, and had been taken in by the farmer currently working the land where he woke. He'd grown up on a farm, as he soon remembered, and found the simple, hard and exhausting tasks of tending a field a great relief after the intrigue of state affairs. But as his memory returned, so did the need to find out what happened and if his duty was done, so he took what he had and left for the city.

Soon, he heard tales of the strange swordswoman from France living in the Dolphin Hotel.

We reached the hotel, and by silent agreement, I went in first and up to my room, with Durand following a discreet distance behind. It would fool no one carefully watching, but it was enough to not cause any more scandal than I generated by my very presence.

Durand soon knocked on the door, and we looked at each other uncertainly for several moments, before being drawn back together.

He leaned in to kiss me again, but I put my hand on his shoulder to stop him. "I am not Lia," I half-lied. He had wanted Lia, all that time ago when she had loved another, but he had to know, this body was not hers. And while she was not indifferent, she was not the one who wanted him now.

Durand looked at me intensely, as if he would melt away everything in the world but us with his gaze. "I know who you are," he whispered, leaning closer, breathing in my hair. His hand slipped down between my legs, and I gasped, feeling it even through all the layers of my garments. "I know," he said again.

I swayed against him, searching for more contact, but he raised his hand, and pulled my head back gently, but firmly.

"I am not Maximilien," he said, not unkindly, and I felt my heart ache as memories of that soft face, looking tender, contorted in anger, and finally peaceful but cold flashed through my mind. I had loved him, even as I scorned and feared him. I had never known him.

"Nor am I," I said, meeting his eyes squarely, not knowing the extent of Durand's relationship with Robespierre, but knowing it was almost as tangled as everything else in our lives.

There is nothing simple in this world, except the simple feeling of pleasure I felt when I saw Durand's smile, warm and gentle and humorous, and without bitterness, a sight I had not seen in a very long time.

"Now that we all know who are and are not," he murmured before leaning down to kiss me again.

His hand glided along my body, even as his lips never left mine. I knew he would not be able to handle all of my skirts and stays alone, so I started on my own clothing. never stopped moving My hands hands shook only a little as they assisted him with our garments. I was not inexperienced: as Lia, I had always been much freer than our nanny had thought proper. As D'Eon, I had had my own brief and not terribly satisfying experiences when comrades dragged to the brothels of Paris. I resolutely did not think of Anna, and all the ways I had not been able to touch her, the happiness I had never been able to give her.

As I removed the last of my own clothing, having found it simpler to handle the ties and layers on my own, and turned to face Durand, I realized this was entirely new for all of us. None of us had ever been here before.

Durand was smiling again as he looked at me. "No," he said, reaching out his hand to caress my shoulder and chest. "Not Lia at all."

Then we were kissing again. I could not get enough of his kisses, or his caresses, and plied my own against his skin. I tried to avoid anything below his left shoulder, but could not help seeing, that it seemed to be completely healed over and as whole as it could be, which relieved me. If I also kept my eyes open, and searched with my hands for sign of a brand, Durand did not appear to notice. If Durand did the same with me, I chose to ignore it.

We fell back on the bed, hungry for one another and determined to have our fill. Soon, however, Durand growled, and I realized his frustration. He could not hold himself upright and continue to touch me as he wished.

I turned us both, to his apparent surprise. I smiled down into his face and leaned over him, my hair a curtain around us, and said as gently as I could, for I felt no rancor, "I dress as a woman, so you thought I would be shy? Did you know Lia at all? Did you know D'Eon?"

He looked taken aback, then reached up to my face, smiling softly. "Perhaps I did not know you, at that," he said, and pulled me down. Which of us he meant, I do not know.

The rest went quickly from there, more touches than could be counted, kisses that blotted out all other memories. What Durand found to slick himself and me with, I could not say, and did not care at the time, for by the time I noticed it, he already had his fingers inside of me, distracting me from everything else.

"Only what you want, as fast as you want," Durand panted, as I moved into position over him, his hand at my waist, and lowered myself.

I rode the pleasure, the feeling of being penetrated not quite completely alien. It was similar, but entirely different to memories I had of before, more painful, more filling, in the wrong place. But there was joy in this, sensations I could have not imagined.

And Durand's hand caressed me constantly, as if he could learn me entirely by touch. He did not pause until he finally reached between my legs, but he never stopped staring into my face.

"Durand," I gasped, riding up and sliding down, and wanting to hear him say my name more than I wanted my next breath. Fearing which name he would say.

"D'Eon," he gasped, threw his head back, and howled.

Joy filled me, and love, and it was enough, as my own head fell back.

It was a long while before either of us spoke again.

"Why do you think you're back?" I whispered into the dark. I did not want to spoil this moment, but there were too many questions between us, and they would only wait so long. I was relieved, however, when he did not pull away, his hand remaining tangled in my hair.

"I don't know," he said, just as quietly. "Maximilien, perhaps--I keep seeing his face."

That would make some sense, that he had something to do with it. Mad, brilliant Maximilien. All the power of a Poet. All the power of a King. But was it part of his dark plans, or done out of love for his comrade?

There is nothing simple in life.

"What now?" I asked, afraid of the answer, but refusing to hide from it.

He seemed to hesitate, but he still did not pull away. "I am not sure," he finally said. "I don't know why I was brought back, but..." He trailed off and was quiet for a moment. "I wish to follow you wherever you want to go. My duty to the King is finished. But I still have a duty to France."

I closed my eyes against what I did not want to deal with, but apparently could not escape. Perhaps it was time for my cowardice to end. Time to go back, for answers, for duty. For the only home I could ever have. For now, though, I merely rolled towards Durand, and kissed him.

The months in London stretched out, and Durand would be with me through all of them. If I occasionally woke up in the middle of the night, startled by the body lying next to mine, the arm resting across me, and felt the need to check every inch of his body for the brand I never found before I could settle again into sleep, Durand did not complain.

I refused to think about what would happen if I ever woke up and he was gone again.

I am D'Eon and Lia de Beaumont. I will return to France with my lover, though I wait every day for God to change His mind and take him from me. I shall savor every moment He grants me this happiness, however, and happily return and do my duty to France. But even should He prove as capricious as he has been before, I know that I am not alone.

I am never alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Jan, elynross, and feochadn for the beta.
> 
> * _"Oh, that you were like a brother to me who nursed at my mother's breast! If I found you outside, I would kiss you, and none would despise me."_ \-- Song of Solomon 8:1


End file.
